Protect or betray?
Niels Reinsborg21/09/2011 10:52:00 a.m.
VICTORIA University French lecturer Keren Chiaroni exposes the best and worst of human nature in her book The Last of the Human Freedoms.
Based on letters, journals, military records and personal accounts Chiaroni tells the story of three Kiwi airmen downed over France during the Second World War and the French citizens who risked and sometimes gave their lives to help in their escape.
Included is the story of Wellington man Raymond Glensor who was shot down over St Omer in 1942. Glensor was hidden by the local population before making his way over the Pyrenees and back to England. However, the men who played the crucial role in Glensor’s escape were later arrested and sent to concentration camps. One died in the camps while the others returned with nightmares that remained with them the rest of their lives.
Chiaroni has captured the lives of the ordinary French men, women and children who chose to do what they thought was right and remained silent for their own preservation. Her writing is lucid and sympathetic and her respect for ordinary people who committed extraordinary acts strengthens the story. Chiaroni not only offers insight into a little mentioned past of New Zealand’s World War Two history but also shows the importance of choice and what it means to be human when everything we value is taken away. Choice remains the last of the human freedoms.







